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| Poster #242 Taste changes in a rat model of spinal cord injury: Impact of high fat diet and weight loss surgery |
| Jonathan W. Snyder, Tiffany Tang, Nelli Horvath, Gregory M. Holmes, Andras Hajnal Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, United States |
Approximately two-thirds of spinal cord injured (SCI) individuals become overweight or obese. Weight loss/metabolic surgery, including sleeve gastrectomy (SG) is regarded as highly effective in the long-term treatment of obesity and remission of type 2 diabetes. It is, however, unknown if obese individuals with SCI respond to obesogenic diets and SG similarly to the non-SCI. To investigate that, male Wistar rats received either contusion injuries of the spinal cord (T3) or sham operations. After full recovery, all rats were fed a high energy, high fat diet (HFD, 60%kcal from fat) for 6 weeks prior to SG. Taste preferences based on oral and post-oral effects were assessed using brief-access (10-s) lick rate analysis and long-access (24hrs) two-bottle choice (2BC) tests for various tastants, at various time points. Pre-HFD, SCI compared to sham-surgery significantly reduced lick responses (total licks and bout licks) for sucrose (0.6-1.5M) and increased for sodium chloride (0.01-0.06M) but did not alter 2BC preferences. HFD resulted in greater adiposity in SCI rats and an overall increased lick response to sucrose. Lastly, SG reduced sucrose preferences in both SCI and sham-surgery cohorts with the SCI rats being more sensitive to this effect. cFos IHC revealed significantly greater neural activity to oral sucrose stimulation in the rostral area of the nucleus of the solitary tract in SCI rats that received SG compared to non-SCI SG controls. These findings collectively support the hypothesis that SCI may result in altered taste functions, and in turn, may increase the risk for development of diet-induced obesity. Furthermore, these findings represent the first evidence suggesting that SG may restore normal sweet preferences in SCI with concurrent obesity more efficiently than non-SCI obese subjects. |